ISSN: 0973-4945; CODEN ECJHAO

E-Journal of Chemistry
http://www.e-journals.net Vol. 4, No. 4, pp. 467-473, October 2007

A Simple Spectrophotometric Determination of

Phosphate in Sugarcane Juices, Water
and Detergent Samples

MAHADEVAIAH, M. S. YOGENDRA KUMAR,

MANSOUR S. ABDUL GALIL, M. S. SURESHA,
M. A. SATHISH and G. NAGENDRAPPA*

Department of Chemistry,
University of Mysore, Manasagangotri, Mysore 570006, India.
gnagendrappa@yahoo.co.in

Received 13 January 2007; Accepted 5 March 2007

Abstract: A simple spectrophotometric method is developed for the

determination of phosphate in sugar cane juice, water and detergent samples.
The method is based on the formation of phosphomolybdate with added
molybdate followed by its reduction with sodium sulphide in aqueous sulfuric
acid medium. The system obeys Lambert-Beer’s law at 715 nm in the
concentration range 0.3-12.24 ppm. Molar absorptivity, correlation
coefficient and Sandell’s sensitivity values were found to be 6.1x103 mol-1
cm,-1 0.999 and 0.0156 µg cm-2 respectively. The results obtained were
reproducible with acceptable standard deviation 3.7% and relative error 3.4%.
For a comparison of the method phosphate present in various samples were
also determined separately following an official method. The results of the
developed method compare well with those of the official method.

Keywords: Phosphate, water, detergents, and spectrophotometry.

Introduction
Phosphorus is the eleventh most abundant element on the surface of the earth and is most
commonly found as phosphate. It plays an important role in biochemical processes and is a
key factor in the eutrophication of surface water1 Increased phosphate concentrations are
linked with increasing rates of plant growth2. The analytical chemistry of phosphorus is very
important in many fields, for example, medical and clinical science, agriculture, metallurgy
and environmental science3. Moreover, in recent years large quantities of phosphate have
been used in beverages4, detergents5, fertilizers6 and also in sugar industries7-9.
468 G. NAGENDRAPPA et al.

The literature7-9 gives the importance of phosphate during the sugarcane juice
clarification leading to cane sugar manufacture. In this context, the chemical action of
phosphate during clarification of sugarcane juice assumes significant role particularly when the
juice is deficient in natural phosphate content in the range of 300-350 ppm as P2O5 which is
essential for good clarification. In case of less phosphate content in sugarcane juice, soluble
phosphate addition is the only alternative to achieve the target value by adding
orthophosphoric acid, single super phosphate or triple super phosphate. Therefore, it becomes
very important to determine the amount of phosphate in sugarcane juice. As a consequence,
various phosphate determination procedures have been reported10-22 which include for
example, titrometry10, complexogravimetry11, colorimetry12,13, atomic absorption
spectroscopy,14 flow injection analysis15, HPLC16 and spectrophotometry methods17-22. Among
such methods spectrophotometry involving molybdovanadate23 and ammonium molybdate16
are most commonly used16. In ammonium molybdate spectrophotometric method, different
reductants have been employed such as tin(II) chloride23,25. ascorbic acid26 and 1-amino-2-
naphthol-4-sulfonic acid27, Some of these methods also involve complicated and expensive
equipments16 and need extraction procedure 20, 23 and such techniques are usually not available
in common laboratories. Though there are large number of methods10-22 available for the
determination of phosphate but such methods used in sugar cane juice for phosphate
determination are unread, instead only a few methods 8, 9, 23, 25 have been used. Therefore, it
becomes very important7-8 to determine the phosphate in sugar cane juice7 and sodium
sulphide is found to be a very effective reducing agent28 but not commonly used for phosphate
determination.28 Considering the importance of phosphate and its determination in sugar cane
juice an attempt is made here to develop the simple spectrophotometric method which is based
on the formation of phosphomolybdate with added molybdate16, 24 followed by its reduction
with sodium sulphide28 in aqueous acidic medium.
Experimental
Elico spectrophotometer model SL 171 (Hyderabad, India) with 1 cm matched quartz cells,
Sartorius digital balance readable 0.0001g were used.
Reagents
All the chemical reagents used were of analytical grade and the water used was distilled
water. Weighed amount of ammonium molybdate, 1.7081 g was dissolved in about 150 mL
of warm water27; slightly milky solution obtained was cooled to room temperature. It was
then transferred into a 250 mL volumetric flask and diluted to the mark with water.
0.05g of sodium sulphide was transferred into a clean 100 mL beaker. It was
dissolved in about 50 mL of water and then the solution was transferred into a 100 mL
volumetric flask. The beaker was washed 3-4 times with water and washings were also
transferred into the flask and the solution was diluted to the mark with water. The solution
was standardized iodometrically28 before use.
0.1145 g of disodium hydrogen phosphate was transferred into a 150 mL beaker29. It
was dissolved in water, then; the solution was transferred into a 250 mL volumetric flask
and diluted to mark with water. The working solutions were prepared by diluting 5 mL of
this solution to 50 mL with water.
Sulfuric acid (0.25N) was prepared by diluting the concentrated sulfuric acid (≈36N)
with water.
 A Simple Spectrophotometric Determination of Phosphate 469

Recommended procedure
A series of 10 mL volumetric flasks were arranged. To each flask 0.5 mL of 0.387M
ammonium molybdate, 3mL of 0.25N sulfuric acid and aliquots of disodium hydrogen
phosphate corresponding to 0.3-12.24 ppm (0.1, .2, 0.3, 0.5, 1.0 , 1.5, 2.0, 2.5, 3.0, 3.5, and
4.0 mL) were added. Finally, to each flask, 1 mL of 2.0833x10-3 M sodium sulphide solution
was added. Then, each solution was let at room temperature for about 20 min. The
absorbances of solutions were measured at 715 nm against water.
Sugarcane juice sample preparation
Sugarcanes were collected from the sugar cane fields situated around Mysore. Sugar cane
juice was extracted from such sugar canes by laboratory crusher8; the obtained juice was
collected and stored in a separate reagent bottle. The same juice of 5 mL of that was diluted
to 100 mL with water and filtered to separate any suspended particles25.
Detergent sample preparation5
5g washing powder of Indian origin was placed in an oven for about half an hour at about
350 0C, the obtained ash was taken in a 150mL beaker. It was dissolved in about 50 mL
water and the solution was made acidic by adding dilute sulfuric acid. It was heated on
water bath for about 10 min. to expel the hydrogen sulphide, nitrite etc. It was filtered and
the filtrate was transferred into a 100 mL volumetric flask and diluted to the mark with
water, later it was used for its phosphate analysis.
Water sample2, 3
Water sample was collected from Kukkarahalli Lake which is located in Mysore city.
Sample was filtered through a cellulose membrane filter, the filtrate containing
orthophosphate, condensed phosphate (Pyro, Meta and poly phosphate) and organically
bound phosphorous, all of which may be present in soluble form and in suspension. As is
well known that only orthophosphate can be determined directly by phosphomolybdate
procedures, pyro, tripoly and poly phosphate are completely hydrolyzed to orthophosphate
by acidification and heating (30 min.) and it was used for its phosphate analysis.
Results and Discussion
The developed method is based on the formation of phosphomolybdate11,17,23,25 due to the
reaction between molybdate and phosphate followed by its reduction with sodium
sulphide in aqueous sulfuric acid medium. Under optimized experimental condition, with
fixed concentration of molybdate and reducing agent , the colour intensity was found to be
proportional to the amount of phosphate present in disodium hydrogen phosphate,
sugarcane juices, water and detergent samples. The reaction conditions as well as the
various experimental parameters affecting the development and stability of the coloured
complex were carefully investigated and optimized for quantitative determination of
phosphate in various samples analyzed. The experimental variables such as concentration
of ammonium molybdate, concentration of sulfuric acid, concentration of sodium
sulphide, order of addition of the reagents and also colour stability of the complex were
optimized for the effective determination of phosphate. The stability constant and
composition of the system were also determined and values were found to be 1.992x106
L mol-1 and 1:1 with respect to molybdate and phosphate. For a comparison of the results,
phosphate present with those various samples was also determined separately following
the official method25.The results obtained for phosphate both by the proposed and official
470 G. NAGENDRAPPA et al.

method25 are shown in Table 1and 2 which account for the complimenting nature of the
results from both the methods. Therefore, the proposed method could be either a substitute
to an official method25 or it could also be an independent method for the determination
phosphate in the sugarcane juice samples.
Table 1. Determination of phosphate in sugar cane juices.
sample Phosphate in mg/l by Phosphate in mg/l by
developed method official method
Sugarcane juice-1 172 170
Sugarcane juice-2 195 193
Water sample-1 52 51
Water sample-2 15 14
Table 2. Determination of phosphate in detergent powders
Phosphate in % by Phosphate in % by
Company developed method official method
Company-A 19.5 20.1
Company-B 25.2 25.1
Company-C 18.0 18.3
Optimization
Effect of concentration of ammonium molybdate
First 5.528x10-3M ammonium molybdate solution was prepared29,31. Three series, each
series having three labeled 10 mL volumetric flasks were arranged .To each flask of the first
series 0.1 mL of 5.528x10-3 M molybdate solution was added. To each flask of the second
series 0.3 mL of 5.528x10-3 M molybdate solution was added. To each flask of the third
series 0.5 mL of 5.528x10-3 M molybdate solution was added. To the flasks of each series,
measured but various volumes (0.2, 0.5, 1.0 mL) of phosphate (30 ppm) solution, 1 mL of
2.0833x10-3 M sodium sulphide solutions were added. All the solutions were diluted to the
mark with water. The absorbance of the solutions were measured at 715 nm .The first series
solutions containing 0.1 mL of molybdate showed absorbance 0.01, 0.02, and 0.05 for 0.2,
0.5,1.0 mL of phosphate. It yielded a straight line, but ran almost parallel to x-axis,
indicating low sensitivity. A second series of solutions containing 0.3 mL of molybdate
solutions showed absorbance value 0.02, 0.03and 0.05 for 0.2, 0.5and 1.0 mL of phosphate
respectively. This also yielded a straight line but indicated low sensitivity when the
absorbance is plotted against concentration of phosphate. A third series of solutions
containing 0.5 mL of ammonium molybdate solutions showed absorbance values of 0.07,
0.09, and 0.15 for 0.2, 0.5 and 1.0 mL of phosphate respectively .The absorbance values
were found to increase with concentration of phosphate and the colour of the solutions were
stable up to 2h. Therefore, 0.5 mL of ammonium molybdate was more preferred than its
volume used in the earlier two sets solutions for the determination of phosphate.
Effect of concentration of sulfuric acid
The effect of concentration of sulfuric acid on absorbance was investigated to achieve high
absorbance via taking various volumes (1-3 mL) of 0.25 N of sulfuric acid ,0.5 mL of
ammonium molybdate , 1 mL of phosphate (30 ppm) and 1 mL of 2.0833x103 M sodium
sulphide solutions were added to the 10 mL volumetric flasks. Then, the solutions were
 A Simple Spectrophotometric Determination of Phosphate 471

diluted to the mark with water. Absorbance of each solution was measured at 715 nm. The
absorbance of the solutions were 0.02, 0.05and 0.15 respectively for 1,2 and 3 mL of 0.25 N
sulfuric acid .The absorbance values indicated that the solution containing 3 mL of 0.25 N
sulfuric acid appeared to be more sensitive. Therefore, it was used throughout the
experiment to determine the phosphate.
Effect of concentration of sodium sulphide
The concentration influence of reducing agent was studied as above with different volumes
(0.2, 0.5, 0.7, 1.0mL) of 2.0833x10-3 M of sodium sulphide. The absorbance values were
found to be 0.05, 0.1 and 0.16 respectively for sodium sulphide. Based on these results;
1.0 mL of this reagent was selected for the construction of calibration graph.
Effect of order of addition of the reagents
Different orders of the reagent addition were studied using optimised amounts of reagents
following the recommended procedure .The results obtained have shown that the order of
reagents addition do not effect absorbance values. But for maintaining the uniformity of the
order of reagents addition as mentioned in the recommended procedure was followed
throughout course of the determination of phosphate.
Calibration Graph
Under the optimum condition, a good linear relationship Figure 1 was found to exist
between the absorbance of the system and concentration of phosphate 0.3-12.24 ppm with a
straight line having slope 0.0336(Cal.) and intercept 0.4667.Molarabsotptivity, correlation
coefficient, and Sandell’s sensitivity values were calculated and were found to be
6.103x103mol-1cm,-1 0.999 and 0.0156 µg cm-2 respectively. The precision and accuracy of
the method were studied by analyzing a series of solution containing known amount of
phosphate (0.3, 3.0 and 10.7 ppm) by using recommended volumes and concentration of the
reagents. The precision of the method as expressed by relative standard deviation was less
than 3.7% whereas the accuracy expressed by the calculated relative error was 3.4%.
0.6

0.5
Absorbance

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0
0 5 10 15
Phosphate in ppm

Figure 1. Calibration graph for the determination phosphate under optimized experimental
condition.
Effect of foreign ions
The effect of foreign ions were examined by using 3 ppm of phosphate and the results obtained
are shown in Table 3. Most of the cations and anions commonly found in sugar cane juice7, 8
do not interfere but iron; copper and zirconium interfere at 20, 12, and 11 ppm respectively.
472 G. NAGENDRAPPA et al.

Table 3. Effect of foreign ions on the determination of phosphate.

Ion Salt added Tolerance limit in ppm
Na+ NaCl 120
K+ KCl 209
Mg2+ MgSO4 400
Fe3+ Fe(NH4)2(SO4)2 20
Ni2+ NiSO4 20
Cu2+ CuSO4 12
Cd2+ CdSO4 192
Zr4+ ZrOCl2 11

Conclusions
The proposed method is working on simple and straight forward principles of the reduction
of phosphomolybdate11,17,23,24 by sodium sulphide leading to molybdenum blue which was
monitored at, λ max 715 nm The developed method found to be having the following
advantages over the reported methods.14-17,23,25,27,32. (i) It is more sensitive when compared to
the reported method17. (ii) The preparation of reducing agent in this method is very simple
when compared to that in the official method25. (iii) It neither involves extraction19 nor
sophisticated instruments like HPLC,16 flow injection spectrophotometer15 and atomic
spectroscopy14, nor requires strict control of pH 23,27,32 or temperature or heat treatment32.
As the method is observed to be working satisfactorily for the determination of
phosphate in various samples giving the results which are not only comparable with the results
of phosphate determined separately from an official method25 and also reproducible as
revealed by the values of statistical parameters like standard deviation, 3.7% and relative
error, 3.4%. Therefore, the method could be employed for the determination of phosphate as
an independent or a complimentary one to the official method25.
Acknowledgement
One of the authors Mahadevaiah is grateful to the University of Mysore, Mysore for
awarding Teacher fellowship.
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